What Are Customers Looking For In 2022?

Your customers are changing, and what they're looking for today isn't the same as when you started your business. If you're not keeping up with the most-up-to-date customer demands, you will fall behind and lose your competitive edge. In recent years, your customers are looking for: 

1. Companies that pivot well 

Every year, it seems like there’s a slew of new buzz words that creep their way into our vernacular. Some of them emanate from pop culture. For example, my kids keep using the word “Woke” or saying “No cap.” Whatever that means? Other terms are thrown around in the business world a little too often like: ideate, or growth-hacking. But the dominant word of late is “Pivot.” Let’s explore what is and isn’t a pivot, and why that’s important to your customers.

Graeme Codrington, a friend and brilliant futurist from South Africa, noted that taking your business online, for example, or delivering content virtually, or connecting remotely isn’t a pivot. It’s merely adopting technology and tools that’ve been readily available for some time.

In fact for many, adopting virtual tools to connect with colleagues or customers is actually showing up pretty late for the dance. That shift has been happening for years, and if you’ve had to scramble to make that pivot, it’s only because you were behind the curve — while others were well down that road. — and likely taking some of your customers with them.

The question is: What advancements, business trends or societal shifts have you been dragging your feet on?

If your business model, your internal processes or the external delivery of your products or services were designed more than 15 years ago, your customers and competitors have been leaving you behind.

Think of all that’s changed in their lives…in all of our lives that have occurred in recent years. We can buy virtually anything that we can afford, from anywhere on the planet, online. Most things can be shipped overnight, and anything local can be delivered to your home…today! Information is a mere spoken request away from Siri, Alexa or Google.

So, you're adopting some of these technologies, or creating a smart phone app to offer greater access or ease-of-ordering for your customers isn’t a pivot. It’s what’s required just to keep-up with your competitors and remain relevant to your customers.

A pivot is different. It's a shift in direction. It’s a shift in mindset. A significant alteration in our approach to either how we engage with our customers, or perhaps a re-thinking of what we provide or produce for our customers or clients.

A pivot is when 99% of your customers used to walk into your bank branch at least once a month to deposit or cash a check, transfer funds or withdraw money. Now of course, very few of them do as we conduct most of our banking on our smart phone or computer.

They have had to re-think how they forge and foster relationships with their customers and clients. How do they attract new customer and reinforce customer loyalty, when they rarely see them face-to-face or have the chance to ask them: “So, got any exciting plans for the weekend?” Our customer experience is now with the app…not with the bank teller.

What minor tweaks to our business model do we need to make right now? How will we work and how will we serve our customers next year?— and the year after?

If you drag your feet in adopting tried-and-true processes and delivery mechanisms that are common in the broader marketplace, your customers will leave you for competitors. If you fail to listen and respond quickly to requests and complaints about your inflexibility or slow delivery, your customers will leave you for competitors.

Listen. Adapt. Adopt what is already available and often widely used by others and that your customers are getting used to. You probably don’t need to change everything, but you do have to change as your customers change.

2. Companies that put customers first. 

It is certainly en vogue to tout the importance of an employee-centric culture. But perhaps the pendulum has swung a bit too far. Fair warning: This is going to be a bit of a rant and you’re welcome to disagree. Regardless, the conversation is important.

I saw another meme posted on social media today with that popular assertion, often repeated by well-meaning company leaders and “culture” consultants because it sounds deep and insightful. It’s often attributed to the likes of Sir Richard Branson and others.

“Our employees are more important than our customers. It’s very simple: If we treat our employees well, they will treat our customers well.”

You’ve got to be kidding right? That is about as pithy as: “Everything you want in life is on the other side of fear.” Oh, that’s so deep! Go embroider it on a pillow. Most of what you want is on the other side of hard work.

To assert that our employees are more important to our business than our paying customers sends the wrong message to our team. Their focus needs to be outward — to serve and please our paying customers and clients. Our customers are the most important thing — albeit in a long list of very important things that include: our employees, business ethics, cost structure, logistics, supply chain, profitability, safety and more.

But at the top of that list is our paying customers. They are the sole reason we exist and the only reason we get a paycheck.

Our customers pay the bills, and this may shock your sensibilities, but our employees are the bills.

The landscape is littered with silicon valley startups that envisioned themselves to be the “coolest” place to work, with personal chefs and flexible working hours and volleyball courts, that now sit vacant because they didn’t have enough paying customers. D’oh!

When was they last time you heard someone rave about about how great it is to work for Disney or Amazon? But you often hear about their legendary customer-focused culture!

Shareholders don’t clamor for monthly “culture reports.” They expect to see earning.

Our policies and procedures are not crafted to make life great for our team, but to make doing business easy for your customers. We’re not necessarily sacrificing one for the other, but certainly catering to one over the other.

Do you know which companies survive and thrive? The ones with a lot of paying customers. In fact, their the only ones that survive. Of course, some have great cultures, while others have cut-throat cultures. To be clear, I am a big fan of a great internal culture where employees are value! It’s easier to recruit and retain great people. Culture is crucial, but its a customer-focused culture that gives your organizations it’s competitive advantage.

3. Companies with impeccable online reviews 

Despite our best efforts, some customers and clients will get mad. Perhaps they’re frustrated by a late delivery, an excessively long hold time, a rude employee, or just the fact that they aren’t getting whatever they want — their way. There’s no shortage of scenarios that we can cause any of us to get a little miffed. It could be a process, a company or even a person at times.

The question is: Do your people know how to respond in those instances? Better still, do they know why it’s so crucial to our future viability that nobody leaves unhappy — if we can help it?

We hear a lot about the power shifting to the consumer. In most cases, what they are referring to is that consumers having more information at their fingertips than ever before. They have the power to research on their own, compare vendors and ultimately to choose who they wish. It’s less about how we sell and more about how they buy today. There is less of a reliance on salespeople to educate us prior to a purchase decision. The power today has shifted to the consumer.

Consumers are weaponizing review site like Yelp, Glass Door and TripAdvisor. Online communities can conspire to destroy a movie by coming together to post negative reviews on Rotten Tomatoes — even before the movie comes out! Do these sites have too much power? In a word: Yes. But that’s the reality we have to live with today, and to be honest, our competitors have to deal with it as well.

The worst part about the power of the internet and online review sites, is that there is no “truth-test” and we have very little power over their policies. But make no mistake, we have great influence over the people who might post negative reviews.

We can work harder to give them a more positive experience, and mitigate the negative ones. We can solve their problems, placate their concerns and fix what it’s broken…before they go rogue on us. We can accommodate their special requests, bend our policies and even fall on our sword when needed to de-escalate a situation gone wrong.

Does this mean we can solve every problem or make everyone happy? Of course not, but acknowledging that doesn’t absolve us of the obligation to do what we can for those we situations we can handle better.

The old adage that “the customer is always right” is the right mindset, if not overly simplistic. It’s a concise way of saying to our staff that we need to be of-service to our customers and not try to be right — even if we are. If there is a disagreement and we’re in the right — and attempt make that clear to our customers — we may win a battle, we will ultimately lose the war. Swallow your pride and keep the customer happy. That’s a great philosophy in business! Not arguing it.

Unfortunately, unhappy customer today don’t just take their business elsewhere, they take their dissatisfaction online and beyond. And those comments, or rants are permanent.

Today, the phrase would sound more like:

We have to defer to customers whenever possible. Our survival depends on our customers getting what they want, when they want and delivered to them in the way they prefer it. If they choose others to make a purchase, we lose. If they leave us for competitors, we lose. If they are unhappy with something and we can’t make them happy or reduce their frustration, we lose.

Are customers more demanding than in previous years? Sure. Are clients getting more impatient? Absolutely! Can they be threatening at times? Oh yeah…And?

Here’s the point: You need to sit with your team and discuss the top things that your customers or clients request that you have to say “no.” Review the reasons why your customers have been frustrated in the past and talk about all the potential responses you have at your disposal. Ask yourselves, how far are we willing to go to make sure they don’t leave unhappy?